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Lost On The Loading Screen

There is a somewhat popular game played by a few people doing the rounds at the moment called League of Legends, you may of heard of it? Apparently 32 Million (active) players have! To put that in some kind of prospective, there are 204 countries and dependant territories (thanks Wikipedia) with a smaller population that the LoL player base. Wow!

I could talk about many aspects of the game, the intricate teamwork involved to succeed, the complex balance of champion skills and item selection, the often venomous community, instead I am going to talk about how blind pick needs to be removed from the game.

There are currently two game modes for the 5v5 map, Summoners Rift, Blind Pick and Draft Pick. In blind pick you are thrown straight to the champion select and everyone in the team selects a champion. The problem with this sort of thing is, even with a balanced team, if the enemy team has a champion you cant counter than you have lost. Unless you are playing with 4 friends the chances of having a balanced team are also slim to none as people instalock champions or simply refuse to co-operate.. Who can blame them though, why would you not want to play your favourite champion? If games lasted for 20 minutes or so this wouldn’t be too bad, but on average it can take 40 minutes to complete a typical match.

Surely there must be a solution to this madness, how about a game mode where you get the opportunity to say, counter pick the enemy champions so you can at least try and match them in a game of skill. Draft Pick is exactly that. In fact Draft Pick is considered the game mode of choice. If you manage to persevere through the death threats, constant leaving, personal insults and many other annoyances and reach level 30 your reward will be, a thick skin and Ranked Draft Pick. If this is not Riot’s way of saying that blind pick is a pointless game mode I don’t know what is? Why is it you can play all the way to level 30, which is a significant investment in game time, and never have to play a single Draft Pick? Riot doesn’t even attempt to explain the difference between the two modes.

If you have just discovered the game or are a long way off level 30, do yourself a favour and play Draft Pick. Blind Pick will not help you in any way and will almost deffinately lead to a more frustrating experience for both you and your team mates. The intricate positioning of pick and counter pick will help you better understand which champions are good selections against other champions. The ability to ban champions from being picked is a major factor in Draft Pick as well, does your entire team composition rely on nobody on the opposing team having an AOE stun? Ban Amumu for example.

Removing Blind Pick from the options seems such a logical desicion. It would help create a much better community and give players a 40 minute game that they can at least compete in rather than wait to lose.